Related links:

Exploding Stars

Stars don't last forever. Occasionally, a star bigger than our Sun will end its life in a huge explosion, called a supernova.

This explosion happens because the center, or core, of the star collapses in less than a second. The outer layers of the star are blown off in the explosion, leaving a contracting core of the star after the supernova. The shock waves and material that fly out from the supernova can cause the formation of new stars. There are many beautiful images of supernova remnants, the expanding shell of gas made up of the outer layers of the original star.

Supernovae last one or two years, and can shine brighter than a whole galaxy for this time. What happens to the star after the supernova depends on how big it was to begin with. If the star was only a few times bigger than the Sun, the core will shrink into a tiny neutron star only a few miles across. If the star was much bigger than the Sun, the core will shrink down to a black hole.

You might also be interested in:

Scientists believe that the solar system was formed when the cloud of gas and dust was disturbed, maybe by the explosion of a nearby star. Such an explosion is called a supernova. A supernova makes waves...more

Everyone is awed by black holes. How could there be a thing that devours all light and matter around it...so that matter can never escape?!? A new discovery has been made about black holes - some of them...more

Scientists have found a possible source of the high speed atoms flying through space in the form of cosmic rays. These atoms reach velocities close to the speed of light. It was known that the source...more

Shock waves from supernova explosion collide with gas ring!! Traveling at 40 million mph, a wave of energy released in a supernova explosion has begun to collide with a ring of gas surrounding the area...more

Scientists believe that the solar system was formed when a cloud of gas and dust in space was disturbed, maybe by the explosion of a nearby star (called a supernova). This explosion made waves in space...more

Williamina Paton Stevens Fleming was a Scottish-American astronomer who lived from 1857-1911. She discovered 10 of the 24 novae then known. Novae are stars that suddenly increase their brightness then...more

In the 1960's, the United States launched some satellites to look for very high energy light, called Gamma Rays. Gamma Rays are produced whenever a nuclear bomb explodes. The satellites found many bursts...more